Apple offers green take-backs for old school computers

Apple Inc. is polishing its green image with a new program that gives whole schools, not just individuals, a chance to recycle their old computers rather than send them to landfills — even if they aren't Macs.

The Mac maker let its US educational customers know on Thursday about a special Free Recycling promo which it touted as a way to clear out the backlog of outdated systems at some schools.

Capitalizing on the annual spring turnover at schools, Apple said that K-12 institutions, colleges, and universities with 25 or more computers could register before the end of June to recycle their old systems for free. Much like the company's take-back program for new Mac buyers, the promo doesn't require that any of the older systems come from Apple to qualify for the exchange process.

The California-based firm also pledged to shoulder most of the burden for the effort. Aside from placing the computers on cargo palettes, schools could take a hands-off approach: Apple would collect the systems itself and destroy anything that could become a security risk if left alone. Tags, serial numbers, and other marks would be removed. Hard drives in particular would be broken into "confetti-sized" pieces, Apple said..

And in a gesture towards its publicly stated green policy announced earlier this month by CEO Steve Jobs, the terms of the Free Recycling promo made it clear that all of the American computers it received would be recycled solely within the country. Greenpeace has previously attacked several high-profile computer companies for shipping obsolete PCs to Asia, where the PCs were often recycled improperly. The activist group later cautiously praised Apple for its efforts in the US while questioning the company's international greening work.

This level of take-back effort is still relatively young at the computer builder, which began its first recycling as early as 1994 but opened its first business and educational programs less than two years ago, in August 2005.

This level of take-back effort is still relatively young at the computer builder, which began its first recycling as early as 1994 but opened its first business and educational programs less than two years ago, in August 2005.

Educational programs less than two years ago? Why is it that most schools around here started with Apple ][s, and what about the Apple Campus Representative program which has been around for 11 or so years now too...

Gaia says cool. ...I say, shove that up your pipe Greenpeace!!! Now bloody go harass HP and Dell and Lenovo... seriously! Apple is done, sorted, please spend your time and energy on the 99% of those trashing the planet with Windoze-PC-craporama.

Gaia says cool. ...I say, shove that up your pipe Greenpeace!!! Now bloody go harass HP and Dell and Lenovo... seriously! Apple is done, sorted, please spend your time and energy on the 99% of those trashing the planet with Windoze-PC-craporama.

I suppose it is just a waste of time to articulate how stupid you post is, but even the most knee-jerk corporate lackey must have some thought in the back of his hippocampus that Greenpeace actually used appropriate, effective and productive means to open up Apple about recycling programs and give stockholders some ammo to push the company a bit.

That's how democracy in the "free market" is supposed to work, nidget. Of course you can fall asleep for another few years until another watchdog group finds ways for Apple to improve its business practices from the social and ecological realms and then you can whine about it all over.

Lesson for the day: Complaining about knee-jerk enviro groups by BEING a knee-jerk anti-enviro groupee is being stupid. You can apologize anytime.